


paragon of perjury

by sapphicish



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: F/F, this is me proving to the world that i can't write harlots-worthy dialogue to save my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: “Where have you been andwhathave you been doing?”Isabella looks at him through the mirror; from where he is standing, from where she is sitting, he seems almost small.“Paying,” she says, “for Miss Charlotte Wells' time. But you know, Harcourt, that ladies should not speak of such things.”





	paragon of perjury

**Author's Note:**

> this was written before...yknow...Everything™ that transpired in 2x05 so yikes! anyways

“You don't want to go where I'm going,” Charlotte says, half-scornful. It hurts Isabella's heart; hurts it like knowing exactly what her brother has done to this woman hurts it, hurts it like it had hurt when she'd stayed just outside of the room all into the night, fingers trembling, knowing that even though she could not hear a thing her brother was doing terrible, terrible things to someone who wasn't her.

And that does not make her feel any better, either; knowing that it was not her, knowing that it is not her who will have bruises and aches beneath her skin for days and days and days to come. It does not make her feel any better at all.

“Where?” she breathes, wants to reach for Charlotte again but, half-afraid of her reaction, keeps her hands to herself this time around.

Charlotte scoffs. “Home.”

Isabella doesn't say a word; she just watches her go, and as she's staring into the mirror later that night, winding the pearls that rest against her throat around her fingers, she thinks of home, and feels a terrible spiteful thing when she thinks that _at least Charlotte has one._

 _This is a cage,_ she thinks, pulling the precious expensive pearls tight against her skin until they feel like a noose. _Not a home._

She visits Quigley's again the very next afternoon; Harcourt grabs her arm on the way out, turns her around so that their eyes meet. She swallows, withstands his inspection up until he lets her go with a cold smile, and she waits until she is in the carriage to let her shoulders slump with relief, corset too tight and too uncomfortable when she lets herself relax for just a moment.

Isabella hands Quigley the other earring to match the first when she arrives, drawn from a small pouch tucked away in her coat. Like before, Quigley spends far too long examining it until, with a knowing smile that suggests she guesses _too much_ at just what Isabella wants out of this, she vanishes into an adjoining room.

Charlotte leads her, soft and quiet, up the stairs. Once the door behind them is shut, Isabella turns and takes her by the shoulders. “Are you well?” she whispers; it feels like the walls themselves are watching her, all with too many eyes and ears and limbs that may reach out and suck her in. That is the ghastliness of this place: a prison just as much as her own.

“I am,” Charlotte says, but she eases her arm from Isabella's grip far too carefully, and then the other.

Isabella drops a shaking hand within her cloak, extends a tin of homemade salve across the space between them in the next moment. “For your bruises,” she murmurs.

“I have no bruises,” Charlotte replies neatly, but she takes the salve and opens it; sits down on the edge of the bed, pushes a lacy sleeve up – light blues and pinks today, like a little made-up doll with bows on her hips and wrists – to start applying it to the darkened skin beneath. Isabella has seen far too many bruises in her lifetime, but all of them have always been on her _own_ body; the sight of them on Charlotte makes her flinch. It feels like it simply does not belong; an otherworldly thing that is not really happening, perhaps some kind of a dream.

Perhaps some kind of a nightmare.

“You will need more than that,” Isabella instructs faintly, watching the way Charlotte's thumb rotates in circles against one of several bruises.

Charlotte wordlessly dips a finger into the salve again. She isn't gentle with the bruises, nor is she patient; she presses and forces the salve in, and Isabella imagines—with a heart that aches sympathy like never before—that it hurts, but Charlotte never so much as winces.

“You've done this before,” Charlotte says in the sunlight that shines in from the windows; they are surrounded by beautiful brightness and Isabella has never felt more like she is in the dark.

Isabella smiles blandly, watches the shift of her own hands in her lap as she sits next to Charlotte, feeling uncertainty make her throat close and tighten briefly. “Is it very obvious?”

Charlotte laughs; it sounds sharp, like a scoff—like a knife in Isabella's spine, making it straighten by instinct if nothing else. “It is. That and you keep an ointment for _bruises._ ”

“I make it myself,” Isabella says, feels her smile wavering when Charlotte's eyes flick up at her with something like surprise. “Can I not have skills outside of entertaining guests?”

For the first time since she'd stepped through the doors, Charlotte smiles back at her; slow and brief, but it is there, and it makes a knot in Isabella's stomach loosen significantly—though it does not fade entirely. It has never faded entirely, not in all her life.

“I suppose you can,” Charlotte says, and hands the salve back. Isabella blinks at her, rolling the tin between her fingers.

“Are you...finished?”

Something like envy boils up inside of her, an ugly twist of dark fingers clutching at her chest. She has never been finished so quickly after Harcourt's rage turns itself onto her.

Charlotte watches her. “The rest would have to be taken care of privately,” she says, and it is a horrible, humiliating thing that Isabella does not realize what she means until several long seconds have passed.

“ _Oh,_ ” she breathes, hastily drops the salve back into Charlotte's lap. “You may keep it, then. I have much more.”

Charlotte leans forward a little; does not grimace, though Isabella imagines it must hurt her to move in that way. “Do you want to watch me take care of the rest... _privately?_ ”

It is not like before; she is not confused this time, understands exactly what is being offered—understands exactly what Charlotte is implying, and still it throws her off. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “I...”

Charlotte's eyes lighten, and her mouth curls.

Isabella sighs. “You toy with me,” she says stiffly, standing and brushing at her skirts. “I do not find it as amusing as you _clearly_ do.”

But Charlotte is already laughing; it should not make Isabella's cheeks burn red, should not make that feeling of humiliation rise in her, but by the time it _has,_ Charlotte has stopped.

She rises after Isabella, takes her by the arms and pulls her in for a gentle, lingering kiss on the cheek. (Isabella swears that it burns her flesh. She dares not look into a mirror to see if that is true or not; it would be a very small price to pay for the disjointed yet undeniably satisfying feeling it gives her, after all.) “Thank you, _Lady Isabella._ ” Her breath is warm, and it brushes Isabella's cheek and ear alike; she can't fight off the shiver, even if she truly tried her hardest.

Isabella dips her head. Stares at the floor, which is surely the only thing she _can_ look at without feeling so deeply lost, astray and uncomfortable. “It is nothing.” It truly is nothing. She could have done more, after all. Before any of it had happened – she could have done more to stop Harcourt. Could have _tried._

But of course her dear brother is never stopped when he does not want to be, and he rarely ever wants that. 

“It is an appreciated gift. And a useful one.”

Isabella says nothing at all; watches a carriage pass out of the window, watches Charlotte's hands fold in front of her, watches the way the girl's dress drifts in colorful ripples across the floor. The silence is almost peaceful; she likes her peaceful silences, but rarely does she ever have _company_ during them. Harcourt certainly isn't one for peace; he pokes and prods and teases, and when she does not stir, he forces her to do so—it has been many times over the ruination of a planned night spent tranquil in the library, or submerged in a bath that is just slightly too warm.

“I feel I must apologize,” she says eventually, turns to look at Charlotte who has moved across the room to pour herself wine. Her mouth leaves shapes of bright, pretty pink on the clear glass, and the way her throat moves when she swallows is almost entrancing; yet the lackluster way she sips at the liquid suggests that she might rather have something like whiskey. Something that burns.

Isabella cannot understand that preference, herself, but it would make sense – for a bawd, or for a bawd's girl – a whore. 

Or perhaps just this: just for Charlotte.

Charlotte glances at her. “For what?”

It takes Isabella a second too long to realize that Charlotte is not playing and teasing; the question is genuine, her tones sincere.

“For Harcourt,” Isabella says thinly, feels her voice trapped in her mouth and her words in the back of her throat, fluttering weak like butterfly's wings. She smooths one invisible crease after the other from her skirts. “What else?”

Charlotte laughs, that same incredulous noise that makes Isabella feel like Charlotte would have rather scoffed. “Don't apologize for him. You don't ever have to apologize for anyone else.”

Isabella stares at that pink curve on Charlotte's glass; stares at her gown; then, looks at the floor. “I do not withdraw my word on things that I very much mean.”

“Then don't,” Charlotte says, and she is suddenly inches in front of Isabella, glass gone, taking her by the hand in a touch that feels abrupt and much too intimate until, to Isabella's relief or disappointment or _both,_ she squeezes quick and lets go. “But know that I don't need an apology. Not from you, and not from him. He's not the first man – the first _cull_ – who has done something like this, and he won't be the last. I'm a harlot, remember?” She looks up at Isabella, eyes intense like a fire and cool like ice all at once; a dichotomy that sends her head spinning. “A _brazen strumpet._ ”

Isabella blinks once, hard, enough that it makes her skull ache; by the time she's opened her mouth again, Charlotte's eyes have lightened to that familiar point. She's being teased. Again.

“So you are,” she whispers, lets the words flood across her tongue and into the air. Somehow, she feels as though they've grown closer – too close, uncomfortably close, suffocatingly so until all of the air is drained from her lungs, but Charlotte has not moved an inch.

She thinks of how odd a sensation it is; foreign and creeping up her spine like a shadow, but no shadow she has ever known in all her life has ever felt so warm. No shadow has made her cheeks grow red rather than pale, and no shadow has made her stomach curl up quite in this way – it brings not a lingering sort of dread, but something else entirely.

She is too busy thinking, so of course she misses the moment that Charlotte closes the distance with a single step; of course she freezes, not expecting it, when the woman leans in and covers Isabella's mouth with her own.

Isabella thinks first of her brother's reaction if he were here to witness this glorious, burning moment. Perhaps he would hate it. Perhaps he would enjoy it. Ultimately, she realizes that neither of those images have any impact on her reaction; on the feeling that bursts alive in her chest, like flowers blooming between the curves of her ribcage. Bright and beautiful and warm. Charlotte, she knows then, is summer where her brother is winter; where even Isabella is winter, frozen and forgotten.

And here she stands. Thawed.

Isabella pulls her head back sharply, breaks the kiss that had felt to her like it lasted an eternity; stumbles a step, and then gathers herself. Her fingers tangle tight together. Charlotte looks at her, still and calm with no sign of contrition on her face or in her eyes, and that is as confounding as it is a miserable thing to witness. Isabella almost longs for that unseen remorse because then, perhaps, she would know – they would both know – that it was a _mistake._ One never to be spoken of again.

“I am not one of them,” she finds herself saying, and wonders if her voice sounds as thick and bitter to Charlotte as it does in her own ears.

Charlotte raises her eyebrows. “ _One of them?_ ” she parrots, but soft enough that Isabella realizes – perhaps this is pity. Perhaps Charlotte pities her. That makes a sick feeling rise in the pit of her stomach quicker than anything else ever has before.

“The men who pay you. Your _culls._ I did not pay you for this, and you know it as well as I do. I will not be made to seem as some sort of...desperate creature longing for the things you have to offer. I am not. I am not so pitiful, not so _lonely._ ” She cannot help but wonder, in the back of her mind, in its deepest and darkest depths – if she sounds as much of a liar to Charlotte right then as she does to herself. “I came here to give you—“

Charlotte interrupts her; where that interruption would grate from anyone else, it gives Isabella relief. She fears speaking—doesn't think it at all a realistic expectation for her to go on without continuing into an ugly, incomprehensible state from which she would never return. “I never said you were one of them.” She's smiling, stepping closer again. This time, Isabella's feet are frozen to the ground. “But you _did_ pay.” Her fingers stroke over Isabella's arm, a caress that's light and soft and purposeful and full of potential all at once.

Isabella realizes, distantly, that she is shaking.

She tears herself away – somehow, somehow, she _tears herself away,_ finds that the slow fall of Charlotte's face makes a familiar dreadful sinking feeling form in her chest. “I did not pay for _that,_ ” she says, sharp and quick and heavy.

She had suggested it to Harcourt time and time again, had let him think what he liked in order to continue these discreet meetings; suggested things like too much time spent behind closed doors with this harlot, lust tangled up in their tongues and the greedy touches of their fingers.

Standing here now before the proposition that Charlotte Wells lays out in front of her is something else entirely; it is not easy, because it is not pretend. Isabella is so, so good at games of pretend. As a child and as a full grown woman. She is not, however, so good at – _this._ Whatever it is, whatever terrible and beautiful thing Charlotte promises to have in store for her.

Again, Charlotte is the one that breaks the unbearable, sticky silence between them, one that stretches thin to the point of snapping until her words shatter it all on their own. “I know that,” she says, smiles again like there is something entertaining about this. About Isabella lost and confused. And maybe, she thinks with a dull pang, this is exactly Charlotte's intent: to be the entertained rather than the entertainer, for once.

“I shall never pay for that,” Isabella says. It comes as a whisper, not that she means for it to; it just makes her feel worse.

Charlotte's teeth flash in her mouth. “Everyone pays eventually, Lady Isabella.”

Then, quiet and slow, she turns; grabs the salve, tucks it away and opens the door. Isabella watches her pass through first, watches her pause outside in the corridor, waiting for her to follow.

Isabella does, after a pause; is revolted to see Quigley waiting patiently at the bottom of the stairs, a grotesque smile on painted lips. Isabella is well acquainted with that smile, and it makes her stomach turn. She doesn't know what she's doing until she's done it – reaches out and takes Charlotte's hand, gloved fingers gripping tight around. Charlotte is so warm, really, that it seems to emanate from her like the heat from an open hearth. It draws Isabella in and repels her all at once, until they're there at the top of the stairs, lingering awkwardly by each other, their hands clasped.

Charlotte, Isabella realizes, looks almost surprised; her smile is gone. For the first time since Isabella arrived, Charlotte is _wavering._ It does not feel like much of a victory of any sort, certainly not with Lydia watching them, but Isabella still leans in, folds her hand over Charlotte's and keeps the other beneath, and how sad it is that she is proud of herself for trembling _only a little_ in this moment.

“I am sorry,” Isabella whispers, keeps her face as blank as she dares so that Quigley does not get over-curious. “I do not mean to upset you.”

Charlotte's lips twitch. Between Isabella's hands, her fingers shift and curl upward – holding on. “You do not.” She seals the statement – one that feels like a promise – with a long kiss to Isabella's cheek.

Isabella wonders briefly if that bright color will transfer from Charlotte's mouth to her skin. It makes her pleasantly warm to think of; something just for her, until the time comes that she has to wipe it off in the carriage before she steps back into her prison, lest Harcourt see and become jealous.

And that is nice to think about, too; Harcourt jealous of _her_ for once, burning with envy because of something _she_ did for once. Having something that Harcourt does not have, has not had – certainly not in the same way, never in the same way.

It would be the first time. The only time.

Charlotte wordlessly links their arms and leads her down the stairs, one at a time, close and soft like her own form of protection from Lydia Quigley.

“I do hope you'll return again to the _pleasure_ my girls have to offer,” Lydia says, sweet as sugar and with a singsong lilt to her voice as they pass.

 _Only one,_ Isabella thinks, _and she is not yours._ It is not what she says; after all, the sugar is poisoned and the singing is the singing in the tales where sirens lead men to their deaths, so she smiles back—cool and even—and has the brief satisfaction of watching Lydia's smile flicker.

Charlotte is quiet as she walks Isabella the rest of the way through the foyer to the door, but she need not say anything at all. Isabella can see it in her eyes when she turns; something warm and bright like laughter.

Isabella smiles quickly, dips her head, and turns to depart; she is not called back, or reached for, but even as she climbs into the carriage and tells the driver to go, her hands are warm and she is no longer shaking.

Those are small things, perhaps pitiful to rely on.

Isabella knows, though, that they are all that she has. Somehow, and for the first time in a very long time, knowing that does not bother her as much as it usually does.

When she gets home, Harcourt is the very first thing to greet her at the door; he watches her in silence, stalks her through the house, and when she has finally sat down in front of her vanity to remove her jewels, he speaks. “Where have you been and _what_ have you been doing?”

Isabella looks at him through the mirror; from where he is standing, from where she is sitting, he seems almost small.

“Paying,” she says, “for Miss Charlotte Wells' time. But you know, Harcourt, that ladies should not speak of such things.”

Isabella has the deep satisfaction of seeing her brother's face sour; he stares at her for a passing moment that she thinks will end in him lunging for her throat, but instead, he turns wordlessly on a heel and swoops out of the room, coat drifting behind him.

Isabella looks into the mirror.

Her reflection smiles back at her.

**Author's Note:**

> say it with me: less lucy/fallon more isabella/charlotte


End file.
